Posts Tagged ‘Nurgle’

So I went to see some old friends who just happen to run a gaming store. So while we were talking they said, why don’t you buy a model and paint something, so it became something of a challenge. The models I bought were the new (to me) Nurglings and I used the store paints and even more challenging the store brushes to paint one stand.

I never timed it, I wasn’t in a big rush, I picked Nurglings because I like to paint them and they are good to experiment with, they also can’t look wrong. I used five different colours to basecoat with, one grey, one purple, one green, one blue, and one brown. I never wrote the paint names down, I can’t even pronounce GW’s current paint names. But a clever person could figure out what I used.

I painted the model in three pieces until I got to the highlight stage. I used just one very well-used starter brush which made doing good eyes and teeth almost impossible. I had to repaint a lot of lips and noses. In the end I just had to say good enough because the store had to close.

I used every wash err “Shade” but the red one because it had ran out. I used purple and blue to shade my red. I also used the red glaze some. I tried one of the dry paints, it isn’t for me, but I can see how it would help painting an army of skeletons for instance. Finally after I used many many washes and I used the flat of the brush to do my highlights such as they are, I tried the texture paint to do the base. It never dried in time to highlight, I even used some special tool to apply it.

People badmouth GW but they make nice models, expensive, but I spent about six hours painting this one stand of Nurglings. I’m old, my back seriously had ceased up by the time it came to highlighting. I could have done better with some better brushes, even using a smaller brush to do highlights and the faces would have helped, but I stubbornly stuck to the one brush even after it became less and less pointy. As Owen noted this was the first model I had ever painted in a store. Usually I go home paint with my paints, with my brushes, which I keep very good care of and sort my colours specifically from lightest to darkest. This model was very much ‘winged’.

If I can get a new job and a new place to live, I’ll put together a painting desk. I’m one of the few people in the world who wants to paint worse. I spent maybe six hours on this Nurgling from opening the package to taking the last photo, Owen looked it up, it was a 15 point model in an army I don’t want to use needing a book I don’t own. So since 1500 points is the standard Warhammer 40,000 game size where I come from, I only need to paint 99 more Nurglings to have an army. If I want to get an army painted I gotta choose models that are easy to paint and high points value, which is why I never start a new army err faction as GW terms them now.

Of course I already have painted almost a dozen Nurgling stands and plenty of other Nurgle demons, more than enough for a 1500 point army, they just wouldn’t be much of a force seeing as how I don’t even know the rules, let alone built an effective army. Unlike everyone else I’m not big on summoning or deep striking, I’m more into just painting stuff that looks cool.

I actually think I did a better job on the backs of the Nurglings, but I never took a photo of the backs, when the model is finally officially done, based and sealed I’ll take another photo. The tips of the horns kept rubbing off, it’ll be tough to match the paint perfectly, someday I’ll paint again, it was July 18th 2011 when I last finished a model. My back is so shot. Six hour painting days or other long, long days in front of a computer is hard on the back, so what do I do when I get home? Update this blog and pour myself a whisky.

I learned this from the Bolter and Chainsword if you actually want to try and steal the intellectual property of Games Workshop instead of waiting a few more days for your physical copy to arrive, I suggest you search the Internet using Topsy not Google. It’s also Debate Night in America so the Twitterverse and Blogosphere are extra busy tonight…

I haven’t played 40K in years it seems. My life is on hold. I got sucked into following the rumors and some overly opinionated B&C posters seem to have caused various threads to get shut down if not getting themselves banned. I’ve never been banned from any online forums, but I have become disgusted and left some. Sadly given all the other alternatives, the B&C is probably still the best 40K forum as far as I’m concerned.

In the past few weeks I’ve come up with two army lists. One is sort of a wish list based on rumors I read online. The second one is a throwback list back to the end of 2nd Edition and the dawn of 3rd. Basically it is all Plaguemarines in small 5 man squads to maximize champions and special weapons. My general will be a Nurgle Lord on a bike, giving him toughness 6 and making Plaguemarines Troops. I also want to try out my Defiler.

Plaguemarines seems to be a bit cheaper, they are 120 points for five and a champ. Just about every squad in the new codex comes with a champion, which combined with the must challenge and boons of chaos rules, will lead to people painting spare Spawn and Demon Princes in addition to more aspiring champions. I have several painted Beasts of Nurgle but I could use a new Demon Prince perhaps. I thought all my Plaguemarine squads had a champion model, but every squad doesn’t have a champion with a powerfist. I probably will run some cheap champs with just melta bombs, that is what I did in the past.

The other big debate I’ve seen in the blogosphere lately is whether Rhinos are worth it. I plan on using some eventually, especially Rhinos with Havoc missile launchers, but I’ve run foot slogger lists before… I need to do a lot of painting eventually, but my first proposed army list is entirely painted and should come to about 1500 points. I need to get my army out of storage and shoot more pictures of it to put on Flickr… I plan to use some Nurgle Terminators too, though ultimately I’d like some Khorne Terminators with the Forgeworld bits to go with the one I already painted. I plan to do some Nurgle Raptors, but I think Khorne or Slaneesh Raptors maybe better, I’ve been collecting bits for that but now I’ll have to get the new Raptor kit too, maybe some of the many 3rd party bits too.

I haven’t gotten to play sixth edition so I’m unsure how much anti-air I need. I was originally thinking Dragon thing, but I’m now thinking I might just add some more models to my Forgeworld wishlist… Cultists are something I’ve been going to do for a long time. I think a squad with a Dark Apostle sitting behind the Aegis Defense wall would be a good home objective sitting squad. It will take me a while to paint them, I think I’ll first concentrate on painting more vehicles that I already own plus maybe a Forgefiend, 8 shots at strength 8 seems like it could be fun, though most people seem to like the other builds… I always take the path last traveled.

I’m still anti-special character. Chaos seems to have a lot of special characters, I think Ahriman may be the best as I like the Warlord trait he gets. I think knowing what your warlord trait is in advance is a huge advantage and infiltrating three units seems awesome. I also like Fabius Bile as he has Strength 5, a special needle gun, and plus makes one unit better. You could totally make a super scoring troop choice with Fabius and other upgrades. Everyone is talking about Abaddon Deathstar Leroy Jenkins builds or Typhus horde J.R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs builds. I’m a slow painter so a horde of cultists will take me months to paint, but I have plenty of power armored CSMs already painted. I need to get some games of 6th Edition but mainly I need a job.

I plan to convert a new Chaos Lord of Nurgle on Bike model plus some mates for him to ride with. I have the bits but in the mean time I will just use a model I converted during 2nd Edition.

Other people keep doing it and who is more qualified than me, I’ve painted just about every plaguemarine or Nurgle renegade sculpted by GW and some I’ve painted many times. Other people when they do this seem to use photos from GW, what gives with that? What is the point of having a miniature painting blog and putting up pictures of models you didn’t even paint. How can you be so sure if it is an awesome sculpt if you’ve never had the model in your hands, let alone had the model in your hands for hours while you paint it.

1) Original Pointing Plaguemarine

I believe this model is called “Nurgle Renegade with Plaguebearer Head”. I own exactly one of these models. I stripped it and repainted it. The second paint job was done in Japan with a very limited palette. Folks these days don’t realize how good they have it with their websites, their mail order, their 100s of different colors to choose from, their specialty bits manufacturers. This model was one of the first Chaos Space Marines I bought and one of the few I could scrounge up while in high school, I converted the beginnings of my army from RBT01s and 2nd Edition box set loyalists.

2) Plaguemarine with Nurgling on shoulder

This model probably came in the same blister as the one above. These two models probably along with the +1 Toughness encouraged me to go with Nurgle at the dawn of 2nd Edition. This model was also stripped and repainted in Japan. This is the only copy of the model I have. Looking at this page in Stuff of Legends, (someone borrowed my old catalogs and never gave them back) it appears I do have every Nurgle Renegade. I almost have every Tzeentch one shown too.

3) Nurgle Renegade with Horns aka Nurgle heavy weapon guy

This model I really liked and was able to find copies of online. I think I may own three. Two are currently painted and in my display cabinet. Dylan was unsuccessful at turning one up, but he’s found lots of old OOP models. I’m unemployed and used to live on an Island in the colonies. The fact I have several is a testament to my passion as a Nurgle collector.

4) Plaguebearer Head #2

This model I did not strip and repaint. He must have come in a blister with one of the other Nurgle Renegades as I’ve had the model since say 1994. It wasn’t unheard of to have blisters with three or more models in them back in the day. Small models like goblins used to come several to a blister. All GW models used to be smaller and even dreadnoughts and bikes came in blisters.

5) Plaguemarine Champion

Picking the final model was tough. Every model I picked was basically released before I started playing the game almost. Models were just more desirable and harder to come by back then. You had to save and make a pilgrimage to GW Gastown, then you had to hope they had what you wanted in stock. I back filled my collection in the mid to late 90s as I traveled across Canada doing co-op work terms. I’d always hunt through old blisters and I ordered a bunch of stuff as it went out of print or traded for it after it was OOP. That said all my favourite models I acquired new when the Diseased Sons were starting out, way before nurgle.muschamp.ca.

There have been a number of Plaguemarine Champion miniatures. There were two released for 2nd Edition. I used one as a general and the second as a special weapons trooper. There was a special champion that came with the metal Plaguemarine havoc box set, which I converted to be an icon bearer and there is even a champion or at least helmetless model that comes with the Forgeworld Death Guard upgrade kits. I like a lot of these armless models, but I think from a miniature sculpting point of view, the models that have the most personality generally come in one piece and historically are made of metal. So I chose the Plaguemarine Champion with Plasma pistol, the one sighting along his weapon with his breather hanging loose. I like the guy with the blue face best. I’m big on blue faces for Chaos Space Marines. I’ve tried other colors and blue looks best with green, purple, black, even red power armor.

I’m a fan of some of my many converted and kit bashed champion models as are others, but it’s getting so I don’t even remember where I got the bits and pieces from nowadays. My collection is pretty big and I have a lot of unpainted models and bits, that I need to devote time to if my life ever turns around. I also need to buy a real camera, there is a dust mote in my iPhone now, I noticed it the other day, unable to wipe it away. I put up a gallery of Plaguemarines before, after I came back from Japan so 2004ish, I’ve painted a few more since then. ;-)

A lot of the best Nurgle sculpts were actually Warhammer Fantasy Battle ones which can be incorporated into a 40K army through conversion or daemonic allies. One model I still have to repaint is my original Chaos Magus, Cancerous the Extremely Naughty.

That all sounds fine and I was content to wait and see. However a bunch of people online have gotten their panties in knots already over these rumors. Fixing the Chaos Codex isn’t hard, it isn’t rocket surgery. Here is what I would propose as someone having carried the torch for Chaos through many, many, rule changes.

HQ

HQ is easy you’ve got your Daemon Princes, your Lords, and your Sorcerers. You also have your special characters. GW likes them, I don’t. GW likes them because they can charge an even larger premium on the sales of special character models. Always remember the rules exist to sell miniatures.

The thing people seem to complain about is not being able to make all powerful mega Lords and Princes anymore so that will probably come back. I expect a lot more options and upgrades available similar to what you see on the Fantasy side in their Daemon Codex.

The biggest decision after who is going to lead your army is what god are they going to follow. I’d force people to choose right from the get go and theme the entire codex around this. Either your leader is devoted to Chaos Undivided or he/she is devoted to one of the four gods: Khorne, Nurgle, Slaneesh, or Tzeentch. This choice will affect your troop options severely. If you choose one of the four gods you may take troops devoted to that god as Troop choices. If you opt for Undivided you may take up to one troop choice from each god.

Lords and Sorcerers can be mounted on daemonic mounts. Nurgle lords can have a pet Beast of Nurgle who is Toughness 5. These are all wargear upgrade options.

Elite

I’m old school so I think all followers of chaos should be warped and corrupted so I would have no possessed entry. I’d have a single elite choice, entitle “Chosen of Chaos”. This would be like the Nobz mob in the Ork Codex. I remember when Chaos Lords could have retinues and the Chosen/Nobz are the comrades in arms of the Lord. Chosen could either be in terminator armor or not, just like Nobz mobs. I don’t know about bikes, I guess you could throw that option in.

There would be a special character which allowed you to take Chosen as troops enabling the all terminator army. There would also be a special character making raptors troops too.

Chaos should be more like the Grey Knights a smaller elite force. I mean some of them have been fighting for 10,000 years, you’d think they’d have improved over time, plus had their numbers reduced.

Troops

This is easy too, you have your Bezerker entry, they are Khorne’s mortal foot soldiers, specializing in close combat. One major addition I’d make to differentiate the loyalists from the Chaos worshipers is more daemons. For every unit of mortal foot soldiers you are allowed to take a single unit of the same or lesser size of daemonic foot soldiers.

Remember the elaborate summoning rules where Khorne had to get into H2H, Nurgle had to cause wounds, Tzeentch cast spells, and Sleneesh force moral checks I think. That is too complicated for today’s 40K, so probably just Deep Strike but force them to appear within six inches of someone with the matching mark.

Nurglings are supposed to be the most numerous of all lesser daemons. So Plaguemarines would be allowed to have a unit of Plaguebearers and a unit of Nurglings. The Nurglings would be say 1-3 stands and wouldn’t be summoned. They would just start the game with the Plaguemarines. I’d also not have Nurglings take up any space in transports. So you could cram 10 Deathguard plus 3 stands of Nurglings into a rhino. Call this rule, “There is always room for Nurglings.”

Vehicles

Right now there is a loyalist rhino box and a chaos rhino box, a loyalist predator box and a chaos predator box, and two landraider boxes. This is just dumb. There should be one box for each vehicle type and then one box called “Chaos Vehicle Upgrades” or some such. Putting these in their own boxes will reduce clutter on shelves and allow people to convert IG vehicles to chaos easier. These upgrades would be all new and all spiffy plastic bits.

Daemonic possession of vehicles would be encouraged. It looks cool and differentiates the bag guys from the good guys. Making the vehicle immune to shaken/stunned is good but why are daemons worse shots? Some daemons can see into the future, surely that helps with their aim? I’d make possessed vehicles BS 4 or even WS/BS 5. Then make it expensive say 25% the cost of the base vehicle.

New Stuff

There is no point in releasing a new codex without new models to flog. Chaos will get a drop pod, a new daemon engine, and two flyers. Just look at the Forgeworld stuff. They probably won’t even get a drop pod, just use the Chaos Vehicle Upgrade bits to convert the existing loyalist one. The daemon engine will probably be smaller than a defiler. Think along the lines of obliterators or killer cans. Something that would be fun to build and be fielded in groups of 1-3. Call it the Chaos equivalent of the attack bike or even landspeeder. I don’t care if it floats or flies, it is a size of model that is missing from the Chaos range.

There will of course only be one flyer model, you just can configure it to be a bomber or a fighter. I doubt Chaos will get the deploy troops from a flyer option, but you never know.

Fast Attack

I never get to use this much. Raptors as troops is a given, maybe that is the Night Lords bone, just bring the right special character. You could make bikers cooler by giving them the option of having jet bikes. Make a new kit that can be built with or without wheels, or just force people to build their jet bikers. Chaos is supposed to use pre-Heresy weapons still.

I’m not sure Fast Attack daemons will happen, that might be something unique to the all Daemon list and I’m fine with that.

Heavy Support

There are a lot of givens here: Landraider, Predator, Vindicator, Defiler, Devastator equivalent squad, Obliterators, plus the flyers. Because heavy support has so many options my gut says the new daemon engine thing will be fast attack. Heck where do dreadnoughts fit in, Elite or Heavy Support. I don’t think Chaos will get too many new big toys, but instead will get a lot of smaller options plus combined with special characters to tweak army list composition.

Special Characters

These aren’t going anywhere and supposedly heroic individuals are making a comeback on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. Most of the ones that are already sculpted will continue to exist in the rules. They’ll probably get the bring along lots of troops of that god special rule. Abbadon will make Chosen troops, Kharne will make Bezerkers troops etc. What they have to do to make a true Chaos Legion codex is release one special character for each Legion. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the readers. One trend which I kinda like is special characters who aren’t HQ. The Imperial Guard codex has a bunch but even Orks or the Codex Marines have some, you have your special scout sargent etc. etc. There will probably be one or two of these, but they really need one special character per Legion…

Well more wasted time today.

I’d like Chaos cultists, a special character that allowed cultists would be cool and something I’d consider running just to paint something other than power armor. ;-)

Update April 27, 2012

I participated way too much in some threads over at the B&C. A lot of my predictions and reasoning here and at the B&C seem to have been spot on though I never foresaw Demons being completely written out of the Chaos Space Marine army list, as per the latest rumors. That’s what they did in Fantasy so I guess that should have been on my radar. I’m glad that cultists seem to have returned as I’ve painted a lot of power armor over the years, but I’m not so glad that special characters continue to be more and more of a necessity to unlock rules and options. I really should wait and see yet more but people post rumor summaries to Facebook even if I stay away from the forums and unsubscribe from blog feeds…

I have a lot of unpainted models, some I should think of selling, but I also have a really large collection of painted Chaos models so I can field something in the new ‘Dex, I’m just not sure when I’ll be gaming or painting again. I’m also not sure how much time, effort, and money I want to invest in the hobby… Hopefully after I read the book I’ll think of something fun and unique to do, if it isn’t fun and unique I mean why bother. I hope to be able to do a faster and more maneuverable army as those do better in the local Vancouver tournament scene, or at least should given the missions and terrain used. I still am tempted to do another big horde unit, even though I dread painting them. Bezerkers, cultists, or zombies, I’ve stockpiled figs for those units for years, especially Bezerkers and cultists.

Also rumors of no dreadnoughts seems odd given how many I have painted, how many get bought from Forgeworld, maybe they’ll be a Forgeworld rules only model, maybe Forgeworld has a demons + CSM + cultist army list in the pipeline. That is usable at Astronomi-con Vancouver, which is good enough for me.

Must stay away from the hobby for another month or two as I try to find focus and health.

Update July 2012

Looks like my speculation and predictions here and especially over in various threads at the B&C were spot on. Daemons are now allies only, there is a new demon engine and a flying demon engine. There are some new HQ or possibly Elite options which implies the return of the 2 wound cheaper leader. Cult Troops are Elite but can be made troops by a hopefully non-special character HQ choice. Cult terminators are apparently gone which is a shame as I never did finish painting my Forgeworld Deathguard conversion kit models. I still might get the Bezerker terminator conversion bits some day.

I didn’t do the best job of focusing prior to my CFA exam and my health is still a work in progress, but it appears I will play my first game of Warhammer 40,000 in a long time soon. I’ll type up a battle report, it will be with sixth edition but apparently it is a month or two more before the chaos codex. I’ve made some notes about what I’d like to do, even given some thought to Demon allies. I also like Guard and Ork allies but with cultists providing cheaper troop choices in the CSM codex, they should be worse than Space Marine Scouts, like Rabble in the Imperial Armour 7 rules. Imperial Guard have good anti-air with the Hydra and Orks have lots of Forgeworld stuff too. Before I return to painting and modeling I need to find a real full time job.

Update 2 July 2012

Bitching and moaning about a book they haven’t even read continues over at the Bolter and Chainsword, but as more rumors come out and even some official GW teasers, a lot of my predictions were correct. Marks unlock cult troops, more demon engines, a flyer, no demons as troops. Abaddon apparently doesn’t make Terminators troops, breaking my proposed Leroy Jenkins build, but Typhus gets his own special build. Not sure I’ll run a Nurgle Lord or an Undivided Lord. I like Chosen and I honestly don’t mind having 3 Elites in a 1500 point army. A Dark Apostle boosts Cultists so maybe that is my small points leader, maybe I’ll do an Undivided Lord and Nurgle Sorcerer, finally repainting Cancerous the Extremely Naughty.

Update August 26th 2012

Some thought the new Chaos Codex would be out by now, it appears they were wrong. However some people have claimed to have seen it and someone calling themselves Faeit 212 has collected all the rumors in one place so you could pretty much start pricing out your army. I still am looking for work, so won’t be playing any miniature wargames or buying any models for a long time. I own plenty already, should probably sell some. I’ve sort of got three army lists in mind. One basically whatever I feel like using the many models I’ve already painted and converted, sort of a one of everything list just to try the new rules out. The second would be a pure Chaos Space Marine list to build towards which may or may not include Forgeworld stuff like the Decimator or Storm Eagle. The final list would be a series of lists with allies, starting with demons, likely not even all Nurgle demons. Based on the new rules I like Tzeentch demons best followed by Slaneesh.

I’ve always liked Chosen and now that you can just make up any sort of justification you want for your army list, I’m thinking two squads of Chosen so I can infiltrate one and outflank the other. Possibly one worshiping Chaos Undivided and one still worshiping Nurgle as I have so many models painted. I’ll still have three troop choices, but I’ve no clue about HQ. Part of me wants to do a Nurgle Biker Lord just to have toughness 6 and be annoying, but I possibly might do what I already do and put a sorcerer on the bike and have an undivided lord. I might even do a Khorne, Tzeentch, or Slaneesh Lord maybe all three, though I already have many models I could use.

I will use Cultists. My Servants of Decay will finally see the table top. Not sure if I’ll ever run a special character it seems so unimaginative, crutch 40K. The only special characters that interest me are the most obscure ones that don’t even have a model, like the Plague Father. I will use my existing Defiler and may build a second Defiler ASAP. I will first paint an undivided Rhino though I may need a dedicated Khorne rhino for my Bezerkers if the rumors are true. For Chaos your choice of HQ affects what counts as Troops, so it makes the most sense especially if I ever play larger games to have a Nurgle guy as my Warlord as I have so many Nurgle models painted. That is what I’ll probably do first, but ultimately I still don’t know.

I totally don’t know what I’ll do for Fast Attack. Your local ‘meta game’ and how common Flyers are will probably determine if you take the Chaos Dragon or a Forgeworld Flyer. I probably will get one of each at some point as I’m more of a collector than a gamer. Besides Defilers, Vindicators especially demonically possessed Vindicators are supposed to be all the rage. I guess I’ll continue to wait until the actual book is in my actual hands before I write a proper list, but I definitely have thoughts. The new box set is up on GW’s website so new Codices can’t be far behind.

Update September 4th 2012

Not much changes in my life, but I’ve taken again to reading the B&C and other rumor sources. Supposedly the Codex is coming out this month. Dark Vengance as they are calling the 6th Edition box set is already out. Here is yet another big rumor collection, I’m disappointed Chosen will lose Infiltrate, will Chaos Space Marines especially those of the Alpha Legion and its descendants be the only army list without any infiltration ability. Demons don’t count obviously as they all Deep Strike in. I’m thinking of running a Nurgle Lord on bike, just four toughness 6 and the ability to prevent scattering…

I may have 2 HQ at 1500 points as the 2 wound HQ has returned to Chaos supposedly, one of my many predictions that seems will come true.

The tournament was yesterday, the convention ended some time today. I spent most of today recovering from the efforts and trying to overcome the pain in my back and legs… I need a new hobby or a new body.

I put way more effort into preparing for my demo game on Friday than I did for Lee’s Warhammer 40,000 tournament. I picked my army the morning of the tournament. I basically took the army I used in my last game of 40K, removed one HQ choice, replaced it with a dreadnought armed with twin-linked autocannons and then with the 200 plus points I had left over I thought, what costs 225 points, a landraider. This required me taking my special landraider transporting case, but that didn’t prove a problem until the end of the tournament.

This army did well on painting score

I was told to arrive at 9 AM, so I set my alarm for 6:30. I didn’t get up until well after 7 AM after a sleepless night. I couldn’t find my proposed army list for this year’s Astronomi-con tournament. It turned out to be in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle directory on my MacBook Pro… I also grabbed one lascannon model instead of the that squad’s autocannon model. Other than that I arrived and promptly had a half hour or more to sit around and wait for other people to arrive before we started game one around 10 AM.

My game one opponent was Space Marines, in fact all of my opponents were loyalists space marines. There were a lot of them, with only one Imperial Guard player, last year’s army of choice at Astronomi-con. There were actually three other Chaos Space Marine players. One was running an old army which had Kharne and I never got a picture of it. The other was running the hated, double deamon prince with lash, with doubt defilers and a bunch of obliterators Iron Warriors list. I’m not sure why you try to piss off and antagonize your opponent, but if you want to, that is the army list to do it.

There were lots of Blood Angels with perhaps only one Space Wolf army. There were one or two Sister’s armies along with several Grey Knights. There were at least two ork players along with some Eldar and Dark Eldar. Hopefully Lee makes a list of which armies attended and where they placed available.

I didn’t win.

I was using a far from optimal list, one with limited mobility, limited anti-tank capability and no dedicated assault squads. What I did have was a high model count and every autocannon in my miniature collection. That was kinda the theme.

Game One

My deployment for game 1

My opponents name escapes me, I’d never played him before. He had a black space marine army, which was partially painted. Hopefully he gets it painted in time for Astronomi-con which is the highlight of the Vancouver 40K year. It still doesn’t have a date, but it will be sometime this summer. As the boys from Winnipeg like coming to Vancouver during the summer…

I do have his army list, he had Lysander with a terminator squad in a Landraider Redeemer. I basically never shot at Landraiders or anything that autocannons couldn’t hurt, instead shooting as much as I could at whatever squad looked the most expensive. He had two tactical squads, two landspeeders, and a devestator squad which must have spent the whole game in a rhino…

Missions were randomly assigned and kept secret from your opponent. This was a throwback to second edition. It also resulted in a lot of ties as in most of my games I accomplished my mission and so did my opponent. It also resulted in some surprised winners of overall and best general. Deployment was also randomly determined on a game by game basis, which worked less well in my opinion. It would have been just quicker to have all the games have a simple deployment or to have game one be Dawn of War, game two be another deployment, etc. etc.

The tournament was 1700 points. I think 1500 points is the optimal number for a game of Warhammer 40,000 played on a six by four foot table. As a result of it being 1700 points and neither me nor my opponent being the keenest of 40K players with every rule memorized, we struggled to get our game in. I think Lee would be wiser to switch to 1500 points or even smaller on a one day tournament. It would result in less special characters and increase the likelihood everyone would have their army painted.

My mission in game one was kill points. Some people don’t like this, but I could care less, a mission, is a mission. How you perform it is what matters. I ended up not succeeding in killing more kill points worth of stuff than my opponent. I did kill Lysander and his little friends. I also killed my share of tactical marines, a rhino, but I never could hit the damn speeders and I don’t think I shot once at his landraider Redeemer. A better army list would have some power gloves, or melta bombs, or melta guns. I didn’t have any of that stuff. I had one combi-melta and one chainfist as that is what my terminators were armed with…

If I have time and energy to spare, I’d paint another combi-melta or chainfist model. It is a struggle every year to get my proposed Astronomi-con army done. This year I’m doing pretty well. I have five partially finished bezerkers to finish then four other models. Alas those four models include: a rhino, a daemon engine, and my general…

I think I ended up drawing on the secondary objective. The secondary objective was always four randomly placed objectives, one in each quarter of the board. With no dedicated transports I was hard pressed to get any that were far from where I deployed. I twice deployed in a single quarter, this is far from optimal when you have a Chaos Dreadnought in your army.

The Beast Rabaan ended up killing at least 7 Nurgle Renegades. He may have killed a Grey Knight, but in the first game he was shutout and died to a multi-melta I believe. Multi-meltas are good, the only way a Chaos Space Marine army can get one is on a Dreadnought and unless they make dreadnoughts cheaper or give some other incentive to take them, they’ll sit on shelves like mine usually do.

It was very obvious this tournament who had a new codex and who didn’t. I still think historically Eldar are the best army in Warhammer 40,000 in the hands of a good player. But the way the marketing is geared and the way GW is set up it is to sell the latest greatest models. In order to do this they make the rules better for the current army lists than the old army lists. Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Tyranids were doing well. Imperial Guard seems to have had its moment in the sun, but currently it is probably the most versatile and cost effective army. 40K is close combat focused to a large extent so super characters, and wonder units both sell well and are rewarded when they get into H2H. The marines and the dark eldar have no shortage of ways to get their elite models into close quarters, Chaos is a tougher slog, especially when you choose to take no rhinos…

Eldar Hornets from Forgeworld

Apparently Imperial Armor stuff was OK in this tournament. That is a staple of Astronomi-con and that must be rubbing off on Vancouver tournament organizers. I didn’t know this in advance, not that it matters. I am broke and unemployed. What Forgeworld stuff I own is to improve the looks not the performance of my army. Not all Forgeworld stuff is cost effective point for point in game, but it always looks cool.

Game Two

I was doing alright after one game. I was never in the running to win. I just don’t care or try as hard as some people do. I play for fun and I use the models I’ve been collecting and painting since I was a teenager. Which is getting, longer, and longer, and longer ago.

My deployment for game two

I drew Mark Spidal who is notorious for complaining about his luck and the unfavorable rules. He had a brand new one day old Grey Knight codex and apparently it was my option whether I let him use it or not. I did and he proxied some things. Hopefully he gets everything to his liking and painted in time for Astronomi-con.

No excuses then Mark!

I set my army up in one big long line with my Landraider on one flank and the dreadnought on the other. Once again I won the role to deploy first and go first but this time, my opponent successfully stole the initiative. Mark moved around but didn’t kill much of anything. At the start of my turn, my dreadnought went crazy and killed three Nurgle Renegades with his guns.

Turn two same thing, the Beast Rabaan goes crazy and blasts away more of my models. The rest of my army concentrated on killing his Grandmaster and the Grey Knight terminators he was with, as I reasoned they would cost the most and have the most spiffy rules. My actual mission was to keep my commander alive. To that end I put Lefty in my Landraider and he stayed there all game. Mission accomplished.

Mark must have been feeling it as his Grandmaster despite having his terminator buddies shot out from around him, charged my ten man terminator squad. He threw in another Grey Knight squad in support. It was ultimately no contest. Why would you charge a terminator squad that outnumbers you? Mark and the Grey Knights got to go first and he had a bunch of power weapons and special rules, but in the end I ground him down.

Nurgle Terminators VS Grey Knights

Mark then started retreating. He was down to about 8 Grey Knights at the end, plus of course two landraiders… Before his full fledge retreat and hide his Brother Captain and his squad decided it would be a good idea to advance on my Nurgle Renegade tactical squad sitting on the centermost objective. They were fresh off killing my Havocs in H2H and must have been feeling it.

Never walk within 12 inches of a stationary tactical squad. 2 autocannon, 2 plasma gun, and 16 bolter shots later none of those Grey Knights were alive.

In the end we tied. I kept my general alive and Mark’s remaining living Grey Knights allowed him to complete his mission. We both had a single secondary objective. Mark claimed after the game, he could have won by ramming my tactical squad with one landraider, but instead he shot at it. This all sounds wonderful in spirit, but I could have done a lot better with a couple of rhinos instead of a dreadnought which killed more of my models than it did his. Also his special rules and snazzy characters were killed by tactical squads and sub-optimal Nurgle terminators.

Game Three

My final opponent was another Vancouverite who I’ve played before at tournaments and local stores. He was using his Salamander Space Marines but he had changed his army list significantly in preparation of this year’s Astronomi-con. Turns out James has fallen in love with scouts, he had three squads of them. One on bikes, one in the fancy landspeeder, the final squad was more traditional with sniper rifles and a missile launcher. The assault scouts had sergeants with powerfists. The sniper scouts were led by a special character, Sergeant Telion. James had another special character, Chaplain Cassius.

Chaplains are inherently annoying and another thing loyalists space marines get that Chaos Spacemarines do not. However anything that can be killed by an autocannon or a bolter I can kill, so Chaplain Cassius and his fancypants Vanguard died to massed fire eventually, but not before becoming the first unit to get rid of the Nurgle terminators, after they failed their break test and the last two were run down…

The Beast Rabaan is out of control again

This game was hard fought. It started out with James scouting across the board with the bikes and the speeder scouts. He also dropped a dreadnought almost on top of my noise marines. I had gotten first turn, I think, but a lot of stuff was out of range or hidden from sight. The Beast Rabaan went crazy and killed some more Nurgle Renegades after I lamented how disadvantageous a Chaos dreadnought was especially in corner deployment. Maybe I should just stick him in reserve every game, or just not field a dreadnought which is the best plan for a Chaos player.

Loyalist dreadnoughts are a lot better. They get drop pods. But that doesn’t matter when you deviate off the board. That was the end of that fellow.

The Librarian warped across the board with the Sternguard to further threaten and surround the Noisemarines. They along with my sorcerer were shot at a lot then charged by two scout squads. The powerfists did their work and James must have been feeling it as he later charged my Nurgle renegade squad. Despite half of them not getting to fight in the first round due to being up a tower, I hung on and later routed both scout squads, proving the power of the humble tactical squad.

The Beast Rabaan went crazy again on turn three, this time though he ran towards the enemy, eventually getting into H2H with a preadator tank and ripping off it’s turret and immobilizing it. I continued to fail to hurt landspeeders despite shooting many autocannon and bolter shells at it over the course of the game…

Late in Game 3

The game was getting down to the nitty gritty and once again time was tight. I reorganized my troops to maximize fire on the scouts who were running away, plus the Sternguard and the Vanguard. I killed the scouts, all but one Sternguard eventually, but the landspeeder and Vanguard were luckier. The Sternguard and Vanguard charged the dreadnought and the terminators. I liked my chances but special rules did me in. Before he died the Librarian casts some power making him able to hurt the dread in H2H. And the lucky saves for the Vanguard continued and they won the combat with the termies, who promptly failed their break test and the survivors were cut down like the cowards they were.

The last Sternguard went and hid between two tanks and the scout bikes rallied and also hid. I had been redeploying my Havocs who finally got a bead on the Vanguard and along with the Nurgle Renegades I think I killed all the fancy pants loyalists. In the end James and I both accomplished our mission, but I lost the secondary one I think. Not enough mobility and scoring units.

One of many Blood Angel armies

Then people started to clean up and await to hear who won the various trophies and door prizes. I didn’t win anything, but this wasn’t a surprise or the goal of the day. Lee forgot to remind everyone to come to Astronomi-con Vancouver, but Dan Miner and the WCP crew are running another tournament next weekend. I don’t know if my back and life can handle two tournaments in two weeks…

I have lots of other priorities in my life and spend most of my hobby time painting, or reading online, or blogging.

Other attendees had fancier cameras than my iPhone so I’m sure more and better pictures will appear online eventually, I’ll try to link to pictures and accounts I come across.

This is an idea I’ve had for a while. I was going to do it over the holidays when I was testing the new camera I got my mom for Christmas, but I never got around to it. I ended up just using my iPhone. It is about a 5 minute video but it took a lot longer to upload it to YouTube than that. The video was converted from a Quicktime friendly format to likely FLV which is what YouTube likes. This downgraded it a bit, but oh well.

I also should have done a series of videos, maybe even, one per shelf, as then I could try and do close ups and 360 panarama type shots of individual models. Oh well, something to work on in the future. I’d still benefit from a better camera and some post production. This is the raw video from iPhone, to iPhoto, to Quicktime, to YouTube with minimal clicks.

You can read all about the Diseased Sons on their own website. Well back to trying to be productive.

I would have liked to have had them finished two days ago, but I spent a lot of time waiting for paint to dry, for washes to dry, for glue to dry, for modeling paste to dry. I’ve now rebased all my old terminators on 40mm round bases and can move on to painting new models.

A lot of steps went into getting them to look like this, including many, many, many hours spent painting the miniatures themselves. The Right Hard Posse was never designed as one big squad, it consists of a lot of extra models and was actually painted as some HQ choices and a couple small squads. Having put all these works into it over the years, I’m going to give the ten man squad a run at this year’s Astronomi-con Vancouver.

Fresh Sprue

In order to get yet more bits to choose from I busted open two boxes of plastic GW models I’ve owned for years. The Goblins weren’t any use, though I was surprised to find Wolf Rider parts and four banner bits in this box. The Flagellants were useful. This box is great for bits. You get two of everything and lots of spare parts such as heads or little bits of chains. The rest of the plastic, metal, and resin bits came from my bitz box and my mountain of sprue.

After gluing the bitz to the bases, I then busted out some modeling paste I had bought. This wasn’t in the original plan, but some people sware by products like this as a basing material. You can mix paint with it so it can be any color. You can cut it after it dries, you can even add grit to it. It goes on like icing a cake. I used it to fill in the gaps between the big and small base, but perhaps I should have done this first and then stuck the plastic model bits into the paste, but it was a new product to me, and I never thought of that until it was too late.

Modeling Paste

After the paste dried, it looked a lot like snow bases, I’m sure some people have used it for that. One benefit of gluing the bitz to the base is you can then sink them into the ground with paste or just sand and glue. The white paste got a layer of watered down white glue then a dip into my box of beach sand and then another lengthy drying period.

Next came several coats of black paint. The first was regular consistency, the next two were watered down. I recommend gluing sand, and whatever else you plan to use as basing materials to the base during the model assembly phase. That way if you use spray primer you don’t have to go through the repeated coats of black paint that I did. Spray primer does a good job on sand. This is one advantage I have over those paint the model in pieces or mounted on a handle people.

Drybrushing was next, the usual three GW manufactured brown paints. I used a small drybrush, and was a bit heavy, but I’d never get every base to be perfectly the same or the sand to match that was old and with the new. Especially because the old sand was really fine. I like beach sand as it is irregular.

Terminators with modeling paste

I started with the metallic bits. They got painted chainmail, followed by two washes, one of Badaab Black and one of Devlan Mud. I also painted some brass bits using Tin Bitz and Brazen Brass. I used a custom thinned Rust Brown Ink with some Plasma Red Ink for them. I also painted the skulls Snake Bite Leather then Bleached Bone. They two got the Rust Brown plus Plasma Red Ink wash.

After all that was dry the metal were done and the skulls looked pretty good, but I put a highlight of Vallejo Beige on them which looked two harsh so another custom wash was used, this time a darker brown mixed with red. That was it for the skulls. The various heads were painted Dhenab Stone then given a wash, of thinned down purple. Then a highlight of Dhenab Stone. Other bits were painted purple, or red, or brown. I even tried out my English Uniform Brown that I ordered from the Vallejo range.

When all this was done it was time for rust and blood. I did the rust first mixing up a custom wash consisting of water, rust brown ink, and Fiery Orange plus some left over half dried pigments that remain in my rust wash mixing spot… For the blood I used Tamiya Clear Red and the Lonewolf Blood and Gore method or my interpretation of it. This really gave the models I nice final touch and it was off to the photo booth.

Sand applied to bases

The squad was pretty much too big to photograph at once. It worked better as a squad of five models. I also took some individual model shots all of which are up on Flickr.

Now I’m at a cafe as it is so cold in Vancouver. This weekend I’ll continue to look for a new job, but also start on some Lead Painter League entries. I hope to finish one or two weeks worth before returning to models for my armies.